


The Sprawl

by CommodoreToad



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, a whiff of family dynamics, an aimless drabble, not so distant future fic, the barest hint of teenage rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 13:30:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16176065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommodoreToad/pseuds/CommodoreToad
Summary: "What is this?"





	The Sprawl

**Author's Note:**

> brief, woefully unedited, and so poorly constructed that it lacks a conclusion.

Here former sheriff Jim Hopper pauses, his eyebrows raised in what is either surprised disdain or overwhelmed admiration. With what suddenly occurs to Will as the essence of deductive reasoning-quite as though the very spirit of detective work from Holmes to Colombo is currently racing through him-he squints at the thin sheet of yellow loose leaf then establishes abrupt, interrogative eye-contact.

Is that disgust?

Or no, Disappointment. The kind his mother can convey using just her eyebrows. The sort that will cause Jonathan to look away from you, focus on something else to spare you the knowledge of exactly how much you've hurt him. Through circumstance, or maybe just habit the original members of the Buyers clan accrue doctorates in Applied Micro Expressions, and the heady, discordant way they exist in proximity to Jim Hopper's open, insistent expressionism can either be described as "maraschino cherries on a sundae" or "drunk accordion-player in a monastery" with little room for a medium to stuff itself between them and call itself happy.

True his work requires a certain amount of deception, as well as the continued maintenance of a rational and foreboding, one hundred percent steel, armor impenetrable against the horrors of his vocation. But in the early light of the crowded kitchen, the warm artificial glow of the Tuesday Night Line Up, the giggling uncertainty of a round of Risk complicated by the somewhat arbitrary application of Jonathan Byers Rules (which state that if the players are good terms with each other empires can be traded for household chores or the rights to brilliant, multi-million dollar ideas) the professional veneer is folded away, stowed carefully in the breast pocket of his work shirt and Jimmy Hopper becomes Saint Jim the Bombastic. Saint Jim the Unruly. He is reactionary, he is boisterous; confused and pleased and curious and invitingly good-natured, and grateful, so quietly grateful it threatens to suck all of the oxygen out of the room.

On this particularly blustery late August afternoon Will counts one hundred and thirty-two distinct emotional states flitting across Hopper's face. Vulnerability is chief among them, the gruff, tacit _how did I fail you?_ implied by the tight, sudden conference of his bushy eyebrows is so bizarrely sincere Will has no choice but to ignore it.

"What is this?" Jim waves the sheet of loose leaf around as though Will might be confused about why they've chosen to meet in the kitchen at 5:15 on a Tuesday.

"Um."

Up go those eyebrows. Like two bushy Supermen taking flight.

Will appreciates the fact that unlike his chemistry teacher Mr. Gladell, Jim doesn't clear his throat and put a hand against his ear like he expects an Academy Award for "Couldn't quite hear you."

"I...uh."

"You uh, what?"

"I...Will blinks. I plead the fifth."

♣

Dustin is fond of insisting that all of Will's parental problems ranging from _why isn't your room clean?_ to _what time are you going to be home?_ can be solved by constantly invoking his constitutional right to legal counsel. Will treats this advice with the amount of skepticism that would make Lucas proud up until the Tuesday afternoon his reluctance to answer Hopper's specific questions about his English essay (or rather Mrs. Haverman's perfectly reasonable criticism of his English essay) and an impassioned plea for due process temporarily baffles his new step-father into silence. As captain of the Hawkins High debate team and the owner of several pocket constitutions Lucas is simultaneously repulsed and grudgingly awed by the idiotic simplicity of this tactic and its effectiveness on people who should know better. Dustin prefers the longer free-form arguments over pizza toppings or the relevance of the Endor scenes in _Jedi_ because they tend to evolve into chaos faster than _Galaga_ vs. _Burger Time_ debates (there's a fifty-three percent chance Lucas will lose his voice condemning George Lucas to hell, and a ninety-eight percent chance Mike's contrarian, devil's advocate-loving, right brain will produce a rousing passionate defense of the pineapple, a fruit he once calls "the textural equivalent of Steve Harrington").

Max maintains an air of detached disdain/mild boredom that suggests the confidence her opponent has in their argument, belief system, and perception of reality is woefully misplaced.

El opts for compromise and resorts to object manipulation only when it becomes clear that a diplomatic option isn't feasible.


End file.
